The Year 1812, festival overture in E♭ major, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture, is an overture written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to commemorate Russia's defense of its motherland against Napoleon's invading Grande Armée in 1812. The above text from the Wikipedia article "1812 Overture" text is available under CC BY-SA 3.0.